Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

ALCS Game 6 pregame

BOSTON — Welp, I’m back in Boston. Had an interesting time getting here yesterday, too. I had to fly from Cleveland to Baltimore and then connect to Boston from there. My first flight was fine, got to Baltimore early even, but the second flight was not so good.

I feel asleep before we took off and woke up about an hour later, flipped open the window shade, only to see that we were still parked on the ground. Finally, a lady comes up the plane and announces that there are too many people on the flight — that the plane was overweight. She asked for volunteers to come off the jet, but no one did.

So, she played her version of Russian roulette with us, literally looking up and down a list of our names and randomly picking two people to kick off the plane. Luckily, I wasn’t one of the chosen ones. Talk about a raw deal, though. But, I got to Boston and now it’s nearly time for Game 6 here at Fenway.

The reason I have a picture of our friend Manny Ramirez up there is I’m just about sick of hearing about his recent comments about "not caring" whether or not the Red Sox won this series. Get over it people. What Manny said was not that big of a deal. Here’s what he said after Boston dropped Game 4:

"It doesn’t matter how things go for you. We’re not going to give up. We’re just going to go and play the game, like I’ve said, and move on. If it doesn’t happen, so who cares? There’s always next year. It’s not like the end of the world or something. Why should we panic?"

All Manny said was it wasn’t the end of the world, life goes on. Can you argue with that? He didn’t say he didn’t care — and his numbers should be ample evidence to the point that the dude does care. Manny’s teammates also didn’t see what the big deal was about what he said. Here’s Mike Lowell on Thursday night:

"We know him. He talks to us more than he talks to you guys. We know Manny the person better than you do. I really don’t have a problem with what he said. When we take it in a baseball sense, that it’s not the end of the world, everyone is up in arms, because it sounds like he doesn’t care about the game. But, the way you see him play, you know he cares about the game. I think he was trying to convey that maybe there’s other things in the world that may be more important than baseball. You can’t fault him for that."

No, you can’t. But, there’s no question that the media will jump all over a quote like Manny’s, especially when it’s coming from such a character. There was another fantastic Manny moment after Boston’s Game 5 win. Manny, once again, was entertaining a pack of media, lounging on a couch and fielding a barrage of questions.

While he talked, David Ortiz pushed through the crowd and asked for a microphone, grabbing one from an NBC reporter. Ramirez, wearing a suit with a bright purple tie, looked up and Ortiz asked: "Hey, everybody wants to know, where’s the funeral?" Everyone busted up and Manny responded with: "Hey, I’m going to try to take this tie to Colorado." Classic.

Anyone watch Joe Torre’s press conference yesterday? I caught some of it after I finally got to my hotel here in Beantown. I’ve got to say that he handled it with class and I was happy to see he didn’t hold back in calling New York’s offer an insult. Once again, good for you, Joe.

I can’t believe Carmona and Sabathia both got bombed AGAIN. Are they tired or just cracking under the playoff pressure?

And Schilling definitely proved the “he’s over the hill” crowd wrong. He didn’t have his “A” game last night, but he still battled through. I enjoy watching him pitch, even though he seems like a real jerk.

Game 7 seems up-in-the-air. Dice-K seems like an emotional disaster, but maybe he can pull off a big one tonight? And Westbrook’s slop fooled the Sox once, but can he do it again? And Trot Nixon better be playing in RF. He’s got the hot bat…..

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